The Top Five Modern Outbound Plays for Next-Level Sales

Outbound sales strategies are slow to change these days. The modern buyer is numbed to cold calls and emails, and they’re easily turned off by irrelevant, canned messages. This isn’t news, especially with the digital selling landscape rapidly evolving in 2020. So how are top sales teams building sales sequences that provide as much value to the customer as they do results for the seller?

The key is to elevate the experience for the buyer by delivering value and nurturing the relationship at every turn. Whether that means playing the long game by posting on LinkedIn, leveraging direct sending, or connecting through video — it’s all about developing that relationship.

The following plays are designed to elevate your cold outbound and allow sales reps to build a dialogue and digital relationship with their prospects. When you use these in tandem with modern outbound best practices, you can create a digital selling experience that converts at every level.

The Plays

Cold Outbound Featuring Direct Sending

Incorporating direct sending into your cold outbound should be used on pre-qualified, top-tiered prospects. In previous articles, we’ve stressed the importance of highly personalized gifts, and if you aren’t on conversational terms with a prospect, then this play can wait for later. That being said, including direct sending as a part of your sales sequence can have an incredible ROI.

According to Sendoso, using personalized direct mail can increase response rates by 4X and increase close rate by 5X. And, something as simple as sending out an automated eGift to specific prospects in your pipeline can drive a 91% meeting hold rate.

Here are a few quick details about the play and an inside look at the first week of execution.

>> Goal: Convert one in three leads.

>> Create: Craft messaging for the gift and your list of top prospects for the month.

>> Channels: Email, LinkedIn, Phone, and of course, Direct Sending

>> Length of Engagement: 30 days

Using LinkedIn Interactions in Sales Sequences

It’s hard to fully explain the impact of leveraging LinkedIn interactions in a few short words, so for lack of a better term, it’s HUGE. LinkedIn is the most extensive repository of business professionals and decision-makers in the world. Anytime you want to connect with top-tier prospects, this is the play to use. 

If you aren’t already using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, we’re giving you permission to go ask your boss. With a premium account, you can access expansive buyer and company information to truly dial in your outbound. With 20+ filters to segment industry, lead activity, seniority level, and more, you can see 42% larger deals, 17% higher win rates, and 15% more pipeline. 

To actualize those results, start executing this play in the first steps of your outbound strategy.

>> Goal: Generate genuine conversations with your network.

>> Create: Build your watch list in LinkedIn Sales Navigator of your top-tier prospects and sort by lead news and lead shares to view their content easily.

>> Channels: Email, LinkedIn, Phone

>> Length of Engagement: Eight Days

Pro Tip: This is not an auto-pilot play. Interact on LinkedIn daily. When a prospect interacts with YOUR post (comments or likes), you have an opportunity to start building relationship capital, so do not waste the opportunity! Engaging with buyers on LinkedIn can go a long way.

Related Content: How to Impact Buyers Through a Digital Selling Experience

The Long Game – LinkedIn Content Play

Following up the LinkedIn interactions play is the LinkedIn Content Play. You’ll want to run this play in the context of an overarching content strategy on LinkedIn to engage and attract your ideal customers. We love this outbound play. It’s industry-agnostic, creates significant brand awareness, and when it’s executed well, it also generates inbound leads. Not only that, but you can build a more stable relationship with these leads. Instead of starting your kickoff call with an introduction, it’s more of a catch-up. 

To hit the ground running, here’s what the long game LinkedIn content play looks like.

>> Goal: Build credibility with professionals in senior leadership roles.

>> Create: LinkedIn Posts, Video/Text DMs, and Comments.

>> Channels: LinkedIn

>> Length of Engagement: 15+ Days (then repeat)

Again, this isn’t an auto-pilot play. People are pretty good at recognizing when something is genuine and off the cuff and when something has been replicated over and over. So be authentic in your content and the way you interact with connections. 

Here’s a sneak peek at the first three steps in Day One of this play:

The Clubhouse Play

There’s a lot of hype around Clubhouse right now. Why? The most recent numbers show that there are 2 million active users every week and 13+ million downloads worldwide. In the context of LinkedIn, which has more than 750 million members, that number doesn’t seem that great, but given that downloads were at 3.1 million in February of 2021, that’s a pretty significant climb, and it’s only going to keep going up. 

This play should be used in the context of a broader content marketing and modern sales strategy. In tandem with LinkedIn, you can use this play to create intimate and more personal interactions with your buyers.

>> Goal: Have valuable conversations with a room full of your buyers and follow-up with attendees on LinkedIn.

>> Create: Clubhouse profile, room, topic, and follow those with LinkedIn posts, stories, and DMs

>> Channels: Email, LinkedIn, Phone

>> Length of Engagement: Five days

The Clubhouse play is face-paced. Once you have the planning and schedule in place, it’s all about creating content and engagement in the follow-up. Here’s an idea of what the first day entails:

Leveraging Your AE/Sales Leader

Leveraging AEs and sales leaders in your sales sequences is aimed more at high-priority accounts that require heavy touches and more personalization. This play also calls for a multi-channel approach with many moving parts, including video, email, LinkedIn, and phone calls. 

>> Goal: Cross-thread between SDR and AE/Sales Leader to catch the prospect’s attention.

>> Create: A shared prospect list and messaging for everyone involved (unique messaging across roles). Using either a spreadsheet or software, make sure everyone knows when their task is due. Finally, use LinkedIn and either a software or recording feature to record customized, personalized video messages.

>> Channels: Email, LinkedIn, Calls, Video 

>> Length of Engagement: Two to three weeks

Pro Tip: Be camera-ready for this play. Vidyard shared that one-to-one video usage in sales conversations has increased 471% from 2019 to 2020, and Salesloft reported that sales sequences with video perform 126X better than those that don’t. 

So, with your hair combed and your lighting set, here’s what the first three days look like for the AE/Sales Leader play.

Reimagine Outbound with Modern Sales Plays

These modern outbound plays are designed to engage with buyers how and when they want to be sold to. Instead of relying on cold outreach, the sales sequences in the Modern Outbound Playbook (The Digital Selling Edition) initiate conversations with a new warmth. When you create that type of connection with your buyers, they’re more likely to respond to your emails, your DMs, and pick up the phone when you call. It’s selling reimagined with the buyer in mind.

The plays we’ve shown are just a small portion of the execution. To see the entire outline and schedule for each of these plays, download the Modern Outbound Playbook (The Digital Selling Edition).